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About

David Butt Philip

Tenor

British tenor David Butt Philip is an alumnus of the Jette Parker Young Artists Program, Royal Opera House. In 2014, shortly after leaving the program he made a hugely acclaimed English National Opera debut as Rodolfo La bohème. Recent debuts such as Erik Der fliegende Hollander, the title role of Brett Dean’s Hamlet, Laca Jenufa and Grigoriy Boris Godunov have attracted serious attention and have established him as one of the most exciting young helden tenors Britain has to offer today.

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In the 2018/19 season Butt Philip makes his company and role debut in the title role Der Zwerg, a new production by Tobias Kratzer at Deutsche Oper Berlin. He also returns to Madrid to sing Froh Das Rheingold in the new Ring Cycle production of Teatro Real. British audiences can see him perform at Royal Opera House as Grigoriy Boris Godunov; English National Opera in Daniel Kramer’s new production of Britten’s War Requiem; and at Opera Holland Park in his debut as Count Vaudemont in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta. His busy concert season includes Beethoven Symphony No. 9 on New Years’ Eve with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin and Vladimir Jurowski, Dream of Gerontius at Gloucester Cathedral, Tippet’s A Child of our Time in Lisbon, Beethoven Missa Solemnis with Rundfunkchor Berlin and Kammerakademie Potsdam, Verdi Requiem with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall and Faust La damnation de Faust with the Hallé Orchestra.

Last season, Butt Philip made his company debut with Teatro Real as Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex in Sir David McVicar’s new production of Gloriana as well as taking on the title role of Brett Dean’s Hamlet with Glyndebourne on Tour. Other highlights include Folco in Mascagni’s Isabeau at Opera Holland Park and Narraboth Salome at Royal Opera House. On the concert platform, Butt Philip performed Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder, Verdi’s Requiem with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Britten’s War Requiem with Opera Orchestra National Montpellier and Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa, Brett Dean’s From Melodius Lay with Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Prokofiev’s Seven, they are seven with the Philharmonia under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy. He also made his role debut as Faust La damnation de Faust in a concert performance with the Orchestra of Opera North.

Recent engagements include debuts as Erik Die Fliegende Hollander at Opéra de Lille, Laertes in the premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at Glyndebourne, Laca Jenufa with Opera North, Rodolfo La bohème with Glyndebourne on Tour and English Touring Opera, Luigi Il Tabarro at Opera North and Don José Carmen at Nevill Holt Opera. During his time as a Jette Parker Young Artist at the Royal Opera House he appeared in productions of Nabucco, Die Zauberflöte, Gloriana, Turandot, Parsifal, La Traviata, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Dialogues des Carmélites and Ariadne auf Naxos.

On the concert platform he has performed Froh Das Rheingold with the Hallé Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival, Beethoven 9 with both the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Tonnkünstler Orchestra at Musikverein Vienna, Handel’s Messiah with the Mozart Festival Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall and Prokofiev’s Seven, they are seven with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, Mahler Das Klagende Lied with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle at the Barbican, Haydn Nelson Mass with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder, Britten Folk Songs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and recitals at the Wigmore Hall with Simon Lane and the Solstice Quartet.

Butt Philip was born and brought up in Wells in Somerset and was a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral. He is a graduate of Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the National Opera Studio and also a Samling Artist, an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and winner of the prestigious John Christie Award in 2011.

Guardian, October 2017

David Butt Philip, a former Royal Opera Young Artist making his debut at ENO – a company whose English-language policy is crying out for singers like him to vindicate it. It’s an impressively complete performance: his Rodolfo is likable and unassuming on stage, but when he sings he unleashes a warm, easy-sounding tenor voice with plenty of heft and ping at the top. His first aria hymns Mimi’s little frozen hands in impeccable Italianate style.

Guardian

…a cast dominated by David Butt Philip’s sensationally well sung Don José… the scale of his singing, his subtlety – a wonderful messa di voce on the climactic note of the Flower Song – and his transition from the diffident, even shy brigadier of Act 1 to homicidal psychopath in Act 4 suggested a great future in the role… There’s a goldmine of promise here.